Relaxation behavior of neat and particulate filled polypropylene in uniaxial and multiaxial compression

The recently developed confined compression test was used to measure the viscoelastic bulk and shear relaxation moduli of neat, glass bead and talc filled polypropylene. In this paper further modifications of the test are introduced and a criterion for the assessment of the quality of experimental data is suggested. As expected, shear as well as the bulk relaxation moduli were found to increase with the addition of particles. In order to determine the pressure sensitivity of the material, unconfined compression tests were also performed and compared with the confined tests through interconversion of the measured moduli. In agreement with earlier results on other polymers, it turned out that the relaxation response is significantly retarded at higher confinement levels. It is shown that the effect of filler particles on the long-term behavior depends on the specific uniaxial or multiaxial stress state. Poisson's ratio was calculated by interconversion from the bulk and shear relaxation modulus; these results show that with a single test in the confined configuration, a complete viscoelastic characterization of the material can be obtained.